Eventide Encounter
by atree
Summary: One-shot, AU:  In a world where Midna struggles alone in the world of Light, she faces Ganon in Hyrule Castle moments before their final battle. But will that battle even occur?


Eventide Encounter

"So you are the Heroine of Twilight."

He sat cross-legged on the Hyrulean throne, head propped up against a closed fist. Above him, the massive statue of the three Goddesses swirled around a Triforce with Zelda perfectly suspended in its center. So she had survived, after all, Midna thought with relief. But she was under no illusion that that would continue to be true if she did not stop this man in front of her.

"So you're…Ganon," she said, snickering despite herself. "You're shorter than I imagined."

For a moment, Midna imagined something like surprise soured the warlord's expression, but it was gone in an instant and then that arrogant smirk of his was on his face again.

"I see the loss of two Realms did not deprive you of your tongue." He stood up, hands moving to the hilt of the Execution Sword at his hip. "Perhaps I will. I'll cut it from that pretty face of yours and feed it to the wolves."

Casually, with a flick of her wrist as if she was admiring some ring on her finger, Midna drew out the Fused Shadows from her pocket dimension. They swirled around her like Faeries, only ugly and broken and contorted. "It ends today, Mr. King-of-Darkness. I'll destroy you and reclaim everything that was once mine. If you want to surrender right now, I'll parcel out some farmland to you in Ordon. I heard the flowers there are wonderful this time of year."

If Ganon was amused by her comment, he gave no sign of it. Outside, the rain fell like oceans, threatening to flood the castle in its enchanted downpour. A flash of lightning illuminated the broadsword in his hand bone-white, a testament to the power of the Sages he had stolen from the realm. A single nick by that blade would destroy her, Midna knew. Creatures of shadow could not touch pure Light any more than a human could touch the sun.

Languidly, Ganon twirled the massive, dangerous sword in one hand. "Truthfully, I've been waiting for you for quite a while. You took longer than I anticipated. Almost fifteen minutes, in fact, but I suppose belation is the fate of shadows. I _could_ end this now" – here he smashed the sword against the ground, sending bits of marble flying – "but what fun would that be? Keep talking, little darkling. The longer you amuse me, the longer you live."

Midna quirked an elegant eyebrow. "The King of Darkness is lonely? I heard comatose princesses hold good conversations."

"Zelda is inconsequential. I could free her right now and she would do me less harm than a Keese. But you…" He focused the entirety of his gaze on her, red eyes febrile enough to melt icebergs. He would be rather handsome if he didn't have such a stupid haircut, Midna though off handedly. "_You _are truly interesting. You managed to escape Zant's grasp – doddling fool he was – and cure the curse I placed on you. And, somehow, you even managed to retrieve all the pieces of the Fused Shadows and restore the Twilight Mirror. Tell me, Princess. How did a little imp like you, abandoned by your people, cast asides by the goddesses, come to face me in my throne room?"

"It's a long story. I'm not sure we have the time to tell it."

He laughed, a deep, melodic laugh filled with malevolence. "We have all the time in the world, Princess. I have waited two hundred years for this conquest. A few measly minutes will make no difference to me."

"In that case…" Midna gave a sardonic grin and curtsied. "The King of Darkness asks a question, and his humble servant obeys. Poor, pitiful boar, locked inside his cage while both Realms grew old and fat! I am standing here because of duty, Ganon, something you would never understand. You overthrew my monarchy and turned me into an imp, but even imps have hatred, and hatred with nothing else to lose is a powerful motivator." Her face framed twin pupils of carbine, the ruby embedded in her forehead shining molten gold. "I saw my people turned to monsters and forced to fight beneath an alien sky. I saw a fool completely unfit to rule take the throne of two Realms. You ask me how I come to face you here. I ask you: _How can I not?_"

Ganon stood as still and silent as a stone. A boom of thunder rocked the palace, loud enough to make her wonder if perhaps the King of Darkness had not heard her. What a shame. She had spent a good while preparing her final speech, only for it to be interrupted during the only time she could speak it. She'd have to write it down later and pass it to a scribe.

"You know, Zant was a poor choice of a vessel," Midna continued, her voice reverting back to its normal scornful tone. "His skills with magic were pitiful. I heard the first time he tried to levitate himself, he set his robes on fire. And you don't even want to know what happened when he tried his first summoning. He was weak and dumb and ambitious. Fools like him are all the fashion in the Council these days; you could buy five for a rupee. And to think he was your right-hand man! A Bulbin would've been a better choice, if you asked me."

"For all your derision, Zant overthrew your little monarchy."

Midna laughed, three short staccato beats echoing in the chambers. "Do you expect ants to rise up against you? My grief at losing my kingdom was only rivaled by my surprise. The only reason Zant even got as far as he did was not because of your magic, Ganon, but because of my hubris. That is a mistake I never intend to make again." A crafty smile stole over her lips, as if she guarded a burning secret in her breast. "When I faced him in the Twilight Palace, after he stopped prancing around like a puppet, he said to me, 'Let me show you the magic of my God.' And do you know what I did then?"

Her smile widened voraciously, single lone fang glinting ivory in the lamplight. "I crushed him like an ant."

A dark film covered her eyes as the symbols along her arms pulsated bright blue. The Fused Shadows whirled around her like a tornado.

"Now, are we going to do this or not?" she said. "If you waited any longer, I'd begin to think you were scared."

"Marry me."

The Fused Shadows froze in the air as suddenly as if time had stood still. Midna cocked her head, wondering if she had heard him right.

"Excuse me?"

"I do not desire Twilight, Midna. That was Zant's obsession. Hyrule is the only Realm I have ever loved, and you could care less whether Zelda or Zant or I ruled the world of Light. Marry me and I will return Twilight back to you. Even help you reestablish order, if you want. The dark magic on your people can be easily undone. The portals will quickly transport them back into your realm. In two days it will be as if nothing had happened, except you will be a _hero_, Midna, forever remembered as the princess who freed Twilight from Zant. They'll build statues grand enough to rival your dark gods. You say duty drives you. Here, I give you a chance to reap its bounty: marry me, and Twilight is yours."

Midna stared blankly at him.

Taking her silence for pensiveness, Ganon continued, "We could fight here, Midna, in a palace in a Realm you do not care for. And you will most certainly die – incredulity does not suit a face as pretty as yours. Those Fused Shadows will do you as much good as they did your ancestors. Their shadow magics pale in comparison to true darkness. You might have crushed Zant, but his power was a mere fraction of my own. We are as different in strength as fire and sun. The only power great enough to rival mine is the power of the Triforce, but one Triforce bearer is unconscious twenty feet above me and the other is dead. Marry me or die."

When Midna finally found her vocal chords to be working again, she could only speak two words.

"You're joking."

Ganon's lips crooked into a sneer. He was enjoying this, that bastard. "No."

"Why?"

He leaned forward, and Midna felt her skin crawl at the lust etched on his face. "You are a fascinating enigma. You are no weak-willed princess like every other I have ever met, no Zelda in any of her incarnations. It takes much more than mere cleverness or strength to overcome the dungeons that housed the Fused Shadows and the Mirror Shards. In the past it had always been the Hero who overcame these odds, but this time it is a mere _darkling_, bereft of the luck and skill the Goddesses blessed to bearers of the Triforce. In all accounts you should never have lived more than five days after being cursed. But not only did you survive, you surpassed all my expectations and overcame the one to whom I gave my power, as insignificant a fraction as it was. Do you know, princess, what makes you so different?"

"Flattery will get you nowhere. What do you want with me?"

Ignoring her, Ganon plowed on. "I have been observing you for a long time, far longer and more intimately than you will ever know, and this is the one answer I came up with: Your heart is as black as midnight, Midna, far darker than that imposter Zant's could possibly hope to be and far darker than you yourself know. If you live another three hundred years it will be as black as my own. Know that what I speak is truth – if I were three hundred years younger, we could be reflections of each other across the Twilight Mirror." He chuckled, voice tinged with a hint of irony. "You said even poor, ugly imps have hatred, and you were right. Hatred with nothing to lose is a powerful motivator. But who did you hate? Me? Impossible. You've never heard of me until three days ago. You have no quarrel with me."

His next words were soft and seductive, uttered with the conviction of a lover.

"It is Zant you hate, and your hatred died along with him. The only reason you have even continued this charade is out of some childish desire to vanquish evil. But without hatred, you pose no greater threat to me than our fair Zelda. I…" He stretched out a black-gloved hand, fingers clenched like it was holding the sun. "I will teach you how to hate again, how to distill it into a blade so potent the thrice-enchanted Master Sword will be dull in comparison. You, Midna, are no Twilight Princess to be forever remembered as a footnote in history books. You hold enough power to sever the world at its seams, if only you possessed the knowledge. And that is something I can give you."

The dull roar of thunder and rain echoed in the silent throne room. Everything he said was a lie, but even as Midna thought it her heart gave a guilty little wrench and she knew he spoke the truth. Ganon was not outright lying – that much she gathered from their conversation. He was also, unbelievably, not joking. The pain was almost exquisite. She cared for Hyrule no more than she cared for the Bulbins whose necks she'd snapped, and her amity towards Zelda extended only so far as she could use her. The only reason she was not back in Twilight with the Mirror a million little shards behind her was because she feared Ganon, but now that he had said he bore no interest in her kingdom…In fact, his help would be most appreciated in restoring her monarchy. A part of her sang out at the possibility. What an _easy _victory it would be, to parade back to Twilight on floats of Light and Shadow and restore her people with every step she took!

"Tempting offer," she said. "You were right – I don't hate you, only dislike you strongly. In a couple thousand years I might even begin to like you. Marriage would be very beneficial to me, assuming you help me reclaim my throne and then not meddle in my affairs after. You'd certainly be more helpful than that damned Council of fools ever was."

And yet…

"I cannot trust you," she said at last. "Don't take me wrong – I'd like nothing better than to accept your offer without a second thought, but there is too much in it for me and too little in it for you. You are, after all, Mr. King-of-Darkness. Your reputation precedes you."

Ganon shook his head slowly. "I knew you were too clever to trust me. But that can be easily remedied."

With a single short laugh, he held the Execution Sword perfectly parallel to the ground in front of him, fingers slowly unclasping one by one to – Midna's eyes bulged wide – let it fall to the ground. The sword bounced once and was still. Its owner stretched out his arms to his sides, looking for all the world like a priest praying to the Goddesses, though the expression on his face was one of anything but rapture. The wound on his chest pulsated white and hot.

"Let this be a test of my intentions. Come at me, Twilight Princess! You have but to utter a word and I will be vanquished. Light will fall back to this realm, and the kingdom of Hyrule will once again return to its ancestors who will twiddle their thumbs until the next darkness rises up to cast them down_. _There is no greater chance to rid two Realms of evil forever – and you, Midna, will return to Twilight as a hero, revered by the citizens of two Realms as the one who threw the Dark God back into shadow. But you shall forever regret what could have been. The choice is yours. The King of Darkness stands before you, penitent."

A single brief second of lucid clarity, as time stopped and melted around them, was all it took for Midna to make up her mind. One moment she was the slender, beautiful Twilight Princess cloaked in sable, and the next she was a massive, eight-legged beast with flesh of undulating gold and ebony. The helmet on its head quivered like it was just barely able to contain a volcano. With a screech, the beast reared back on its hind legs, four arms held high enough to almost scrape the ceiling of the massive antechamber. A flaxen spear materialized between its fingertips. The beast plunged the weapon down, aiming straight for the naked jewel of alabaster poised over Ganon's heart.

It stopped an inch away from his flesh.

For an eon they stayed in that position, shadow against darkness, beast against barbarian, and then, slowly, the spear disintegrated into fine golden dust that vanished into the air. The eight-legged beast shrank until it was down to six legs, then three, then two, and then the Twilight Princess was there again, standing resplendent a hand's length away from Ganon. The Fused Shadows were gone from her face to reveal a low, dangerous smirk. With imperious disregard for personal space, Midna leaned forward, tilting Ganon's head close to her with a single pale blue hand.

"I do," she said, and kissed Ganon on the lips.


End file.
